Dick Allen

Its pretty obvious that despite the White Sox having better access to all the information regarding Sale, Soxtalk posters have a much better handle of what is really going on, and a much better plan going forward. The Sox are just idiots. No wonder there is zero chance this team competes for years.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 9, 2012 -> 07:28 AM) If a guy is happy with sitting on the bench, I don't want him on my team. I agree, unless its a guy winding down his career and is happy to sit down. I fail to see anything wrong with players wanting to play. Its certainly better than the alternative.

A bench player wishing he could play more. What a controversy. What was KW thinking signing this guy? I thought the Sox were at about rock bottom until this.

QUOTE (Baron @ May 8, 2012 -> 06:21 PM) Then block me. Quit crying. You're the one crying

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ May 8, 2012 -> 06:14 PM) Good work Joe McEwing. Any other LF throws Dunn out there, but Johnny Damon's arm is god awful right now. I would love to see Damon and Pierre play long toss.

Justin Masterson is a very large human being.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ May 8, 2012 -> 04:46 PM) Something I was thinking about today. On MLB Network they were talking about how when Youkilis comes off the DL, he will likely have lost his job to Will Middlebrook and 3B, and the Red Sox will probably try and move Youk. He has got about $10M left on his deal, prorated. I wonder if the Red Sox kicked in like half the contract or so, if Kenny would try and go after Youk. Or maybe try and get creative and offer a Rios for Youk kind of deal, with the WSox throwing in a big chunk of money. I always have said Youk disgusts me for some reason, but if he were a White Sox, I would love him. I just don't see how you get anyone to take Alex Rios unless you're throwing in so much money you might as well keep him.

The new draft rules should help the Sox, and they have to do better with Latin signings. If you get some of those guys pan out, you can get away with some bad drafts. Look at Ron Schueler's drafts. They were as bad or worse than KW's, yet when he left, although it didn't prove to be true, his farm system was rated #1 in baseball.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 8, 2012 -> 04:14 PM) And perhaps, from the former manager as well? I think Walker really liked Ozzie. I think his problem was with KW.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ May 8, 2012 -> 01:37 PM) HAHA 50-65 wins a season? That's tough to do. But the bottom line is though that if they are going to miss the playoffs they may as well have the worst record in baseball. It does not matter. They could not "build" on their great 10-6 start because they are not that good. They have too many bad players on their team. That's generally what happens. It does matter. I understand draft position, but to say it doesn't matter if the Sox win 88 games and miss the playoffs or lose 100 is beyond silly.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 8, 2012 -> 01:36 PM) Who said for nothing? You trade him if you can get some worthwhile pieces back. You don't keep him because he hit a grand slam in the World Series 7 years ago. The point is, you aren't going to get a major haul for him due to age and contract, even though his contract is fair. And you are limited as to where you could trade him as he has full no trade protection.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 8, 2012 -> 01:34 PM) Trading the face of your franchise for esstentially nothing benefits the team how exactly? John Daniels recognized this and held on to his top player who had much more trade value than Konerko did. He also went out into the free agent market at this time. That's what I'm saying. All these rebuild guys can't even take it when they are rebuilding on the fly. Getting rid of anybody with even the smallest of value and starting over would be a total disaster.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 8, 2012 -> 01:26 PM) The guys the Rangers traded weren't 36. That's what I'm saying. This is franchise is going nowhere at the moment. PK is just not an untouchable asset. He pretty much is in reality. You can only trade him to places he would want to go and chances are you won't get much more than salary relief for him. That won't go over with the remaining season ticket base very well.

The total rebuild guys seem to think it won't harm the Sox to be real bad for so many years, but if meaningless baseball with bad players doesn't scare you away, how come the end of September game threads are 2 pages long? That's how they would be in April. Even the biggest diehards would cease to care whether you want to admit it or not.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 8, 2012 -> 01:20 PM) The Sox did the same with Konerko. Unlike the Rangers, they don't have anything to supplement that. So you're saying it really wasn't a total rebuild.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 8, 2012 -> 01:14 PM) He also kept and extended the face of the franchise in Michael Young. He also kept Hank Blalock though those times, and signed some other FA contracts, such as Kevin Millwood. Yeah. The Rangers bottomed out at 75 wins. The year after they traded Texiera they won 79. Nowhere near a total rebuild and the Sox have no one who can get them the return Texiera brought Texas. 5 years at a minimum, if most everything goes right. It probably would be closer to 10.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ May 8, 2012 -> 12:51 PM) Eh, maybe. This just makes me realize how much I miss 4 year players in college, even 3 years is better. That's true. I hate the one and dones. Let them turn pro. Its a farce having them pose as college students. Making them go for 2 is just going to create an even bigger farce and more cheating.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 8, 2012 -> 11:45 AM) Frank was coming off his second sub-par season. The other three guys you named were unknowns. Cleveland was winning the division for like the 6th consecutive year. Yeah. I'd say they were pretty irrelevant. As far as what's going on now, we're a virtual lock to miss the playoffs for the 6th time in 7 years. Assuming we finish below .500 (a safe bet), that will be 4 years in that span in which we've had a losing record. Attendance is already sagging. Minimal amount of young impact talent on the major league roster. Not a damn thing in the minors. What I'm saying is, it's already bad. More bad is not really going to make things worse than they already are. Doesn't matter if they were unknowns or Frank was coming off a bad season, they still were there which means quite a head start on a current, "total" rebuild.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 8, 2012 -> 11:33 AM) So in other words, we're already defeated no matter what? Because a World Series is definitely not in the cards for this team in the next 5 years. Famous last words. BTW, the last time the Sox were irrelavant in your estimation, they still had guys like Lee, Ordonez, Thomas and Konerko in the organization. Thinking they could tear it all down now and rebuild with their current players, it would be hard to imagine it could be done in less than 5 years. If the Sox lost 90+ for 5 years straight, I bet Soxtalk would be pretty dead, and those are the most loyal fans. The other thing that makes total rebuilds a lot harder these days is you don't get Jon Garland for Matt Karchner anymore. At least its very rare. It used to be commonplace to trade a decent veteran for a top prospect at the deadline. Not anymore.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 8, 2012 -> 11:28 AM) Why not? Nothing in the 12 years between 94 and 06 worked, despite having some very good teams, including a division winner. As a matter of fact, a couple of homestands ago the Sox had their smallest crowd since 2005, the year they won the WS and never were not in first place. So people weren't even sold back then. Until the consensus of soxtalk can show they have patience with guys like Beckham and Morel and Viciedo, which up until now is non existent, there is no way the same people will have patience with a total rebuild.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 8, 2012 -> 10:51 AM) Nobody expects an expansion team to do anything in their first 5 years or so. Yeah, it took them a while (aka Andrew Friedman taking over). But there's no way in hell any practical fans would be demanding a winner right away. Especially in their division. This argument might've been passable in 2008 when many thought they were a 1-year wonder. But it's 2012 now. They're legit and they're set up for the long haul. There's lots of reasons you can point to for their crummy attendance. Being bad pre-Friedman just isn't one of them. The Arizona Diamondbacks say hello. If you don't think a decade of horrificness hasn't done anything to harm their fanbase, you are being naive. People who would have been fans had they at least been competitve, moved on to other things. Its happened in Toronto, its happened in Cleveland, and it would most likely happen on the South Side of Chicago.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 8, 2012 -> 10:37 AM) Sorry, I don't buy it at all. The Rays haven't been around 15 years yet. Do you really believe a reason the Rays can't draw despite the amazing success they've had is because they sucked in 2004? No way. No, the years from 1998-2007 when 91 losses was their best season. Putting it in perspective, the 2007 White Sox had a better record than any Rays team their first 10 seasons. If your team is awful for its first 10 years of existence, you may have lost at least one generation of fans, if not more.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 8, 2012 -> 10:30 AM) Another team that had great attendance, went through a down period and got back at least 50% of their fans (compared to the Indians, Blue Jays and Mariners examples) is Colorado. The Brewers have done a great job moving from a largely-irrelevant small market team to a perennial powerhouse. It's not impossible. And even in the 1980's/early 90's and then again in the late 90's/early 00's, the A's NEVER drew huge crowds. And even though Beane hasn't been very good recently, I credit him for sticking his neck out with the Cespedes signing. You have to take a risk to get a superstar player when the odds are more likely it will go bust and really end up hurting a small-market team for years to come. If Milwaukee didn't have a roof, they wouldn't have the attendance they have.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 8, 2012 -> 10:25 AM) That was at a time when JR was willing to open the purse strings and the fans were coming out to support the team because they were putting a good product on the field. Nothing can be worse than this current oblivion we're mired in. Even a GM throwing darts against the wall with a blindfold on has to get something useful back for Floyd, Crain, Thornton, AJ, Alexei, Konerko, Dunn, Danks, etc. With the White Sox generating SO MUCH MORE MONEY than any of those other 6 teams from media rights, with their valuation at #10 in all of baseball, with a pretty inelastic market in terms of season ticket/suite buyers (corporate side) who will be supporting the team indefinitely into the future, they're financially in a much better position to weather the coming storm. Arguably, the Dodgers' sale price (over 20 interested groups in on the sale at one point or another) and upcoming national baseball renegotiated contract dollars/revenue sharing puts the real value of the team in the $900 million to $1 billion range. But seriously. what's the difference between 72-90 with John Danks on the roster and 65-97 without Danks? Will there be ANY difference in attendance? I sincerely doubt it. Moving up 5 spots in the first round of the draft will be much more valuable than then negligible difference in ticket revenues lost from being a semi-horrible team compared to a REALLY horrific one. Its funny you're now crying about money when you jab me all the time for saying the Sox weren't being straight in April of 2009 saying they had nothing to spend. Seriously, change your name to Mitt. And if nothing can be worse than where they are at right now, there's nothing from stopping you from paying any attention. If the entire situation bothers you that much, you should spend your hours doing something you might enjoy. Its not like JR is going to read your posts and give you a call for more of your opinions. Getting really bad only makes sense if you know the process of getting better will be short. It was short last time because they acquired 4 studs in the draft, and all were contributing by the time the season ended when the 4th player was chosen. That doesn't happen often.Obviously WS or bust is KW's motto, but there is value in seasons when the Sox don't win the division. It keeps people interested in your product.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 8, 2012 -> 10:07 AM) I can say with the utmost confidence that's bulls***. Florida doesn't give a s*** about baseball. Never has, never will. I would say the market probably isn't the best. The ballpark is hard to get to, but not being able to draw 10k is a problem for a team with that roster. They don't have the fanbase a successful team should have, and he could be very right that's part of the reason. Look what happened in Cleveland. They sold out for years, got bad for a long time and now are lucky to get 15k a game even when their team is good. People found something else to do and may never be back. I truly believe if the Cubs ever get down to 15-20k a night regularly, they won't get to their pre Sox WS title levels until they win a WS, even if the team is good. Eventually the hot restaurant or hot nightclub isn't so hot anymore. I think the same thing might happen with baseball teams.